According to the CDC long Covid has contributed to thousands of deaths in the U.S.

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More than 3,500 Americans have died due, at least in part, to long Covid, according to new data from the CDC. The agency’s findings underscore the potential severity of a condition that continues to impact millions but is still poorly understood and — in some cases — dismissed entirely.

The new analysis, published early Wednesday by the CDC’s Center for National Health Statistics, found that 3,544 death certificates between January 2020 and June 2022 listed Covid-19 as a cause of death in addition to citing such terms as “chronic Covid” or “long Haul Covid.”

A death can only be attributed to long Covid if a patient is diagnosed with having it. And though a recent CDC National Center for Health Statistics survey found nearly one in five U.S. adults who say they’ve had Covid-19 also have long Covid symptoms, it remains prohibitively difficult for patients to get treatment for the condition, doctors say, due to low levels of awareness among doctors and patients, lack of funding for specialized clinics, and the time-consuming process of getting diagnosed and treated for a condition that has dozens of symptoms.

The constellation of long Covid clinics that have cropped up across the country continue to have months-long waiting lists for new patients. The relatively few patients who do get treated are overwhelmingly white and affluent enough to be able to take time off work to go to multiple appointments and spend time online finding care and support groups, doctors say.

“This is the same movie that we’ve seen over and over again,” said Christian Ramers, a doctor who treats long Covid patients at the Family Health Centers of San Diego. He says throughout the pandemic the various innovations that emerged to fight Covid-19 — tests, vaccines, treatments and long Covid clinics — have always been accessible first mainly to people who have the resources to seek them out.